


maybe in the next lifetime, we'll get the timing right

by jadedgalaxies (Emeraldxoxo)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Mild Blood, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2017-05-26
Packaged: 2018-11-05 02:58:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11004555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emeraldxoxo/pseuds/jadedgalaxies
Summary: It was purely accidental that Yahaba caught Kyoutani coughing up flowers in front of the school."It doesn’t matter who it is but you’re going to die. Do you hear me?! You’re going to die, you great big idiot! They're not worth dying for..."





	maybe in the next lifetime, we'll get the timing right

**Author's Note:**

> my angsty boys

It was an accident that Yahaba even saw. Practice had run later than usual, leaving Kyoutani, Watari and Yahaba to lock up the gym. Watari left not too long before the other two, since his sister is waiting for him. At the school gates, after the rather long and semi-uncomfortable walk, they part ways.

Well, until Kyoutani sank to his knees, coughing violently. Yahaba whips around, his eyes wide as he watches his awkward companion vomit up a myriad of colourful flowers. He recognizes some of them, roses lavender in colour with thorns, white carnations and daffodils but there are others Yahaba has never seen before. He stands there, feeling more unsure of himself than when Oikawa assigned him captain last year. He feels like a jerk.

Kyoutani’s fit quells. He curls his palms into fists, spitting out a final mouthful of blood and petals.

“Kyoutani –”

“Shut up,” he growls, though it lacks his usual venom. “Just shut up.” Kyoutani sweeps the flowers into the gutters.

Yahaba steps towards him. “Who is it?”

"Why do you care?” Kyoutani retorts, his voice strained. He must be holding back a cough. Yahaba crouches beside Kyoutani, touching his quivering shoulder. Kyoutani shoots him a glare, his lips wet with blood and bile but he doesn’t pull away.

“You’re my friend,” Yahaba says it like it’s obvious, though even after all this time he doesn’t consider them friends by any definition of the word. “Teammate,” he corrects, mostly for himself, “besides, yours looks pretty serious.”

He’s seen half of the Aoba Johsai team fall victim to Hanahaki Disease and only about a third of them recovered without surgery. He might not find Kyoutani’s company particularly pleasant but he doesn’t want his best player suffering. Yahaba wouldn’t wish Hanahaki Disease on his worst enemy let alone his teammate. And from what he’s heard about it from Oikawa, it was like getting your heart ripped out of your chest every waking moment.

“It doesn’t matter,” Kyoutani says, reluctantly and gets to his feet. Yahaba straightens. Kyoutani wipes the blood off his mouth, staining his uniform sleeve.

Under different circumstances, Yahaba would have argued with him but considering Kyoutani isn’t ripping his face off right now, he decides to keep it civil. “Just… talk to whoever you’re in love with. Rejection can’t possibly be worse, right?”

There’s this strange, unreadable expression that settles on Kyoutani’s face. He swallows back another coughing fit and lets his vision wander upwards. He’s still shorter than Yahaba but somehow, he looks taller. Yahaba follows his line of vision. A single cloud shimmers against the backdrop of sunset. Kyoutani doesn’t say anything, but somehow, Yahaba has an idea of what he would say.

_You’ve never been in love before, have you, idiot?_

Kyoutani doesn’t look back when he leaves but Yahaba hears him coughing the moment he’s out of sight. He’s going to pry the name from Kyoutani if it’s the last thing he does. After all, it can’t be that bad, can it?

* * *

The following morning, when Yahaba catches Kyoutani before lunch, there’s a pink petal poking out between his lips. Kyoutani rips his arm away and hauls ass to the bathroom. Yahaba sends Watari an apologetic look and hurries after him. He’s spitting out a handful of pink flowers (altheas? He combed through his sister’s flower meaning book last night but he’s still fuzzy on 90% of flowers), glaring at Yahaba like he’s the harbinger of a plague.

“What do you want?” he snaps, though the sharp edge to his voice is hindered severely from the hacking cough that completes his question. “Asshole.” he tries to save his image and fall miserably.

“Seriously, Kyoutani, you’re going to _die_ if you don’t do something,” he says, rather, pleads. Kyoutani might be a crass asshole who irritates Yahaba but he’s a teammate and a good guy lives in him. ( _The dog, that dog, their dog_ )

He glares at Yahaba. “Honestly go fuck yourself.” Yahaba scowls. “Stop pretending like you care, _Captain_. I’m fine.”

Yahaba arcs an eyebrow at that sentiment. “You’re unbelievable, you know that, right Kyoutani?” He smothers the bitter rage simmering in his gut. “Un _believable_.”

He leaves Kyoutani alone, leaning against the wall outside, listening to Kyoutani vomit up more flowers. He hopes whoever Kyoutani is in love with is worth it.

Practice that afternoon is _brutal_. Kyoutani is easily winded throughout practice and kept sneaking out to cough up a flower shop worth of flowers. Yahaba’s mind kept wandering, thinking about who Kyoutani could have fallen in love with. Oikawa once told him that Hanahaki only infects people who are completely, head-over-heels in love. It’s a concept entirely foreign to Yahaba. How could you stand to be in love with someone who doesn’t return your love to the point where it physically manifests and begins to kill you? He doesn’t get it.

The rest of the team is beginning to pick up on Kyoutani’s bizarre behaviour. Coach asks if he’s sick. Kyoutani spits back a “no” and proceeds to hit more volleyballs faster than Yahaba can set to him.

Kyoutani’s sprawled out on his back in the center of the gym while the first years pack up. Yahaba hovers above him. “Is it Watari?”

“No.”

“Iwaizumi?”

“No.”

“Kindaichi?”

“Kindly fuck off.”

“…Oikawa?”

“Gross.”

He doesn’t get it. There isn’t anyone that Kyoutani seems remotely interested in (other than Iwaizumi which he already shut down) so why is he suffering so much?

“…Is it me…?”

“… of course not dickweed.”

Truly stumped. He’s coughing again and this time, he can’t seem to get to his feet quick enough and he vomits huge, thorny red roses on his lap. The coaches had left five minutes into clean up but the rest of the team had seen.

Rivets of blood trickle from the corners of his mouth and he groans.

“I—is Kyoutani-senpai going to be okay?” a first year, Otani, asks timidly, the volleyball nets wrapped around his cordlike arms.

“Yes,” Yahaba says, though he’s not sure he’s convincing anyone. “Get up, Ken, let’s go to the nurse.”

Kyoutani isn’t given a chance to answer thanks to his own body as he coughs violently and mouthful of anemone lands on his lap. Yahaba pulls Kyoutani up, onto his back and makes his way to the nurse.

“Lemme go!” he snarls, shoving the back of Yahaba’s head. His coughing fit grows worse and Yahaba sets him down before he would have vomited a colourful array of flowers onto his back.

“Ken…” Yahaba whispers, helpless and feels so _so_ small in this great big world. There isn’t anything he can think of to do.

Kyoutani fists his slacks, bending over and spitting out the remaining flowers clogging his throat. “It doesn’t matter who it is, Yahaba.”

“Just stop it already!” Yahaba snaps, reaching out to grab Kyoutani by the front of his sweat-soaked jersey. “You’re right, it doesn’t matter who it is but you’re going _die_. Do you hear me?! You’re going to die, you great big idiot!” His heart races in his chest. “Ken, they’re not worth dying for, do you hear me?” Kyoutani’s holding his breath, likely in desperation to stop another coughing fit. “Please, Ken, get the surgery.”

Kyoutani meets his eyes, his face crumbling into this heart-wrenching mix of despair and acceptance. Crestfallen, he says, “Maybe.” The easy smile Yahaba had gotten used to seeing on Kyoutani’s face returns, just for a moment. “Maybe I will.” He shakes Yahaba off and leaves, abandoning his uniform.

Yahaba doesn’t know why his stomach knots.

_Idiot idiot idiot_

* * *

 

A week passes before Yahaba sees Kyoutani again and his worry hadn’t waned even when teachers assured him Kyoutani was alive. Kyoutani’s laying on a bench, using his arm to block out the sun. Yahaba’s partially convinced Kyoutani’s been skipping ever since their horrible confrontation. Yahaba doesn’t really blame him, if that’s the case.

“Ken.”

Kyoutani sure takes his sweet time moving his arm and sitting up to give Yahaba room to sit. He looks relaxed, well, as relaxed as he could be given that his face was permanently twisted into a sneer. He doesn’t seem to be coughing anymore and Yahaba waits a few minutes, confirming his theory.

“Did they return your feelings?”

Kyoutani glances at him. “No. I never told him. It wouldn’t have worked out anyways.” He sounds a little broken, wistful even. It hurts Yahaba’s chest.

“How do you know?” _Why do you care_?

Kyoutani chuckles – it surprises them both. “Too different.”

Yahaba really can’t argue with him. It’s weird, that Kyoutani would fall in love with someone so desperately it almost killed him and he thought they were too different in the end.

“Surgery, then?”

Kyoutani smiles, mostly to himself, but it’s different than the rare smiles Yahaba’s used too. Before, when Kyoutani smiled at him, it wasn’t very big but it used to reach his eyes. He used to blush, too.

“Yeah. You were right, Yahaba, he wasn’t worth dying for,” Kyoutani says. It stings. Kyoutani shrugs, standing. The weight on his shoulders is gone. Strange, how an easy operation can truly liberate someone, even if they can no longer love that person again. “See you at practice, Cap’n.”

He watches Kyoutani walk away. His chest burns in a way he’s never quite experienced before. Worse than heartburn. It’s deep in his chest, unforgiving and it takes and it takes until tears prickle at the corners of his eyes.

Yahaba swallows the lump forming in his throat. He thinks about Kyoutani’s mystery man again. Who could… who…

He pushes himself up. Who?? Who was… it…? Kyoutani’s coughing fits nearly crippled him while he was around the team… and Yahaba.

 _Ken._ The first time Yahaba said his name, Kyoutani coughed up flowers. He coughed up roses before that when Yahaba asked if he was the mystery man. _Oh_. His legs give out and he collapses to the ground, panting, his vision blurry. All this time… all this time it was Yahaba?! Was he a such  _idiot_ that he never realized?!

There’s a tickle in the back of his throat.

 _Yahaba_ was the unbelievable one. He’s such an idiot. – _He wasn’t worth dying for_ –

His lungs ache a little and the tickle grows stronger.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he whispers, his stomach churning. It feels like someone’s just reached into his chest and ripped his heart out.

Yahaba coughs a little. It gives way to him vomiting up so many flowers he feels like he’s dying. They suffocate him, agonizing and slow, and Yahaba can only hope it will end soon. Kyoutani had been living like that every day _for Yahaba_. Worthless.

When his coughing subsides and there are enough flowers in front of him that he could open a florist shop, does Yahaba throw his head back and laugh. He’s hysterical, all by himself in the courtyard. Incredible. Kyoutani is right, Yahaba isn’t worth dying over. He never even noticed Kyoutani’s feelings, let alone his own, before it was too fucking late.

The future – god it hurts to breathe just _thinking_ about the future – they could have had together is nothing but a pipedream now. Kyoutani, no, _Yahaba_ gave up on their future before it could have even begun.

He wants to apologize to Kyoutani, desperately, but it won’t make a damned bit of difference. Kyoutani doesn’t love him anymore and he never will again. It’s too late…

It’s _over_.

**Author's Note:**

> dontcha love angst? i adore this story. the angst is poetic, truly.
> 
> yahaba's the real great big idiot - raise your hand if you wanted to slap him for being obtuse. also, Kyoutani, you dumbass, if only you confessed you fool - so how about we slap both of them !


End file.
